Wright v. NYC Department of Corrections
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-05167
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Wright v. NYC Department of Corrections, Judge Swain ordered payment or corrected fee paperwork before the case can proceed.
Tandika Wright, who must pay the required fees or submit corrected paperwork within 30 days for the action to proceed; NYC Department of Corrections is not yet required to answer.
What happened
In Wright v. NYC Department of Corrections, Tandika Wright filed a civil case without paying the required fees or submitting a complete request to proceed without paying them upfront. The order says she is detained at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island and is representing herself.
The court gave Wright 30 days from June 24, 2025, to either pay $405 in fees or submit a signed prisoner authorization and a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees. If she submits the paperwork, the court may collect the $350 filing fee from her account in installments; the $55 administrative fee does not apply to people granted that status. No response from the defendant is required yet.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain said the case will be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures if Wright complies, but it will be dismissed if she does not comply on time. Judge Swain also denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for any appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Wright v. NYC Department of Corrections · No. 1:25-cv-05167
- Laura Swain
- June 24, 2025
Background
Tandika Wright brought this civil action without a lawyer. She did not submit the required filing fees or a completed prisoner authorization. She did submit an application to proceed without prepaying fees, but the court found it incomplete because she did not answer many questions.
Under the cited federal statutes, a prisoner filing a civil action must either pay $405—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without prepaying fees. A prisoner who receives that permission must authorize collection of the $350 filing fee from the prisoner’s account in installments and must provide certified account statements for the previous six months.
Order
The court ordered Wright, within 30 days of June 24, 2025, to do one of two things: pay the $405 in fees, or submit the attached prisoner authorization and an amended application to proceed without prepaying fees. The documents must be labeled with docket number 25-CV-5167 (LTS). No answer from NYC Department of Corrections is required at this stage.
If Wright complies, the case will be processed under the procedures of the Clerk’s Office. If she does not comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed. The order does not decide the underlying claims against NYC Department of Corrections.
Appeal and warning
The court certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for purposes of an appeal. The court also warned that certain future dismissals of prisoner cases can count as “strikes” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), which can limit a prisoner’s ability to file future federal civil actions without prepaying fees after three strikes, unless the prisoner faces imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.